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The highest-ranking British serviceman in recent history to face a court martial has been cleared along with four of his men after a judge ruled that they had no case to answer over charges of mistreating Iraqi civilians.

For the past five months Colonel Jorge Mendonca MBE, 43, former commander of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, has been standing trial for negligently performing a duty – that of failing to ensure his men did not mistreat Iraqi civilians detained in Basra, Iraq, in September 2003.

It was alleged that some of the colonel’s men abused the Iraqis, keeping them hooded, cuffed, deprived of sleep and beating them for failing to hold stress positions over a 36-hour period.

This was supposedly pre-interrogation ‘conditioning’ which is banned under international law.

One of the prisoners, hotel receptionist Baha Musa, 26, died.

The prosecution had alleged that Col Mendonca did not do everything possible to make sure the detainees, arrested as suspected insurgents, were treated properly by his men, according to the Geneva Convention and the Laws of Armed Conflict.

But Mr Justice McKinnon, sitting as judge advocate, ordered the colonel’s acquittal after ‘no case to answer’ submissions were made by his defence team at the end of the prosecution’s case.

Four of Col Mendonca’s six co-defendants were also cleared on the instructions of the judge today following similar applications.

Two of the seven men remain on trial at Bulford Camp in Wiltshire.

Although the judge’s decisions can be reported, the reasons he gave for making them cannot be publicised until after the conclusion of the trial for legal reasons.

Formally acquitted on the judge’s request by the panel, the military equivalent of a jury, was Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, 30, of the QLR, of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault.

Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, 22, and Private Darren Fallon, 23, both of the QLR, were both cleared of treating Iraqis inhumanely – a charge brought, for the first time against British servicemen, under the International Criminal Court Act 2001.

Corporal Donald Payne, 35, of the QLR, now merged with the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, became Britain’s first convicted war criminal when, at the start of the trial in September, he admitted treating the detainees inhumanely.

Payne was cleared today on the judge’s orders of Mr Musa’s manslaughter and a further charge of perverting the course of justice.

But the judge dismissed ‘no case’ applications made by two of other soldiers.

Major Michael Peebles, 35, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, both of the Intelligence Corps, remain on trial.

Both deny a charge of negligently performing the duty of ensuring the Iraqis were not ill-treated by men under their command.